Grades inflation zero sum game

The good cheer and euphoria prompted by the unprecedented number of high performers in the class X/XII board exams, has dissipated with dawning awareness that grades inflation has been ubiquitous this year. Conterminously sky-high cut-offs stipulated by the best colleges have made the admission process a nightmare. Summiya Yasmeen reportsOn June 1, daily newspapers splashed the joyful faces of cheerful 15-17-year-olds across the country who topped the school-leaving exams of the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) — the countrys largest pan-India examinations board. For the first time in the 59-year history of CBSE, the national pass percentage rose to 98.6 percent (cf. 91.1 percent in 2010) with the number of students who averaged 90 percent plus recording an all-time high. Of the 1 million students countrywide who wrote the class X exam conducted by the board or school (for the first time students had the option of writing a school-conducted class X exam) in March, and were assessed as per the boards new continuous and compre-hensive evaluation (CCE) system, 3.8 percent (38,377) scored a perfect cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 10 (91-100 percent). This was a great improvement over 2010 when a mere 1.2 percent (11,005) of the 902,517 students who wrote the class X exam scored 90 percent plus. New records were also set in CBSEs more difficult class XII school-leaving examination. A new high of 81.71 pass percentage was recorded — a modest 1.84 percent improvement over last year. But the number of high performers in the 90 percent-plus category swelled by 30 percent to 21,665 from 16,563 last year. The number of students scoring 95 percent and above also reached a new high — almost doubling to 2,097 from 1,202 in 2010. Little wonder, good cheer and euphoria all around. However since then, much of the euphoria has dissipated as awareness has dawned upon students and principals that the spectacular board exam results were not peculiar to their school, but the experience of almost all 10,000-plus CBSE-affiliated secondaries and higher secondaries countrywide. With sky-high college admission cut-offs prescribed for class XII students (Delhi Universitys 77 affiliated colleges have hiked admission cut-offs by 12-14 percent to 90-100 percent), questions are being raised about CBSEs inflationary grading which has admitted an unprecedented number of 21,665 students in the elite 90 percent club. Within staff rooms of the countrys top K-12 schools and academic community, the emerging consensus is that marking and evaluation under CBSEs new CCE system, which accords substantial weightage to in-house assessment done by schools, was too generous. But Vineet Joshi, chairman of CBSE, (who failed to respond to numerous phone calls from EducationWorld) refutes this charge. There was a lot of speculation about board exams being made optional and schools being given more weightage. But it gave us the best result. Whether a student was assessed by a school or the board, everything was monitored. So it is not generosity, but success of reforms, (sic) Joshi told reporters in Delhi (The Tribune, June…